"The structures through which international affairs have been conducted for the past forty years
have been shaken to their foundations. Now comes a time of rebuilding." Jeane Kirkpatrick,
1990.

BACKGROUND

NATO enlargement is not "an end in itself," asserts NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, "but
a means to build security and stability within the wider Europe." This vision of a stable and
secure Europe, where NATO has a vital role to play, must also include Russia. How to get from
where we are today to a Europe "whole and free" for the twenty-first century is the primary
policy challenge facing NATO. It has been so since the beginning of the decade and the end of
the Cold War.

Grasping the immensity of recent events in Europe is difficult. The European security milieu
was dramatically transformed by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany, the
dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the collapse of the Communist order in
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE),(1) and the emergence of twenty new sovereign states in the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).(2) Security institutions such as
NATO, the European Union (EU), and the CSCE/OSCE have been under considerable stress as
they have attempted to adapt to the kinds of challenges faced by post-Cold War Europe.

Of all these historical events, the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, was probably the
most dramatic and will be remembered as the turning point in post-Cold War East-West
relations. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and later the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
however, are likely of even greater historical importance. This judgement is warranted
given the tremendous impact these events have had, and will probably continue to have,
on the three main players in the Alliance enlargement debate: NATO, the fledgling
democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia.

RUSSIA

Russia has been suffering from what can be described as the "Versailles Syndrome," which
affected defeated Germany after the First World War. Moscow thinks it is the victim, with
NATO taking advantage of its temporary difficulties. It feels isolated, humiliated and has
had great difficulty in adjusting from its past superpower status to its post-Cold War
situation. Moscow's humiliation stems mainly from the major defeat sustained when it lost
its two empires: the inner Soviet empire, contiguous to the Russian heartland, which had
taken centuries to build; and the outer empire, acquired after 1945, consisting of the CEE
satellites. Particularly frustrating for Moscow is the awareness that both empires were lost
without having to fight a war.

In the spring of 1989, the political boundaries of the Soviet sphere extended to the Elbe
River, in the heart of Germany. Before the end of 1991, these boundaries had changed to a
greater extent than in the disastrous summer of 1941, following the Nazi invasion. Of
Russia's major historical boundaries, only that in Siberia remains where it has been for the
past several centuries. In the south, in the Caucasus, Russia's formal borders are today as
they were at the beginning of the 19th century, before the incorporation of Georgia into
the Russian empire.

In Central Asia, Russia's borders are now roughly the same as those before the rapid
imperial expansion that began in the region in the middle of the nineteenth century. More
important still, are those borders that reflect the country's standing as a European great
power. Russia's western state borders are now those of more than three centuries ago,
before the Treaty of Pereislav, (1654) which eventually led to the incorporation of Ukraine
into the Russian Empire.(3) The rapid disintegration of the Soviet empire means that some
twenty-five million ethnic Russians now live outside Russia, in what former Russian
Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev described as the "near abroad." Russia has undergone
revolutionary changes in recent years. These changes must be factored into the current
NATO enlargement debate. The "NATO- Russia Founding Act, (4) signed in Paris on 27 May,
marks the beginning of a better understanding of Russia's legitimate security concerns.

CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

The dual collapse of the Soviet Union and the satellites communist regimes, followed by the
rebirth of each country's national and historical consciousness, have created political and
economic uncertainties throughout the region. These uncertainties have helped ferment the
forces of volatile nationalism and ethnic conflict that Soviet hegemony had suppressed for more
than forty-five years. Because of this transformation, all of the states in the Central and Eastern
European region have had to redefine their security interests.

The end of the Cold War produced a situation that, in its fundamentals, is not unlike what
emerged following this century's two world wars. Each postwar situation resulted in the defeat of
a power or alliance of powers, (Imperial Germany and Austria-Hungary, Nazi Germany and
Japan), that had sought Eurasian hegemony. Each postwar situation witnessed the temporary
emergence of a "security vacuum" in CEE, presenting the victorious powers with a clear
opportunity to fill that vacuum.

In the two previous occasions, at Versailles and Yalta, the failure of the victorious powers to
settle adequately the Central and Eastern European question set the stage for the next
confrontation among the Great Powers. A failure, in the present post war period, to address
satisfactorily the current perceived "security vacuum" in the CEE could very well create a cancer
for the security of Europe. Whether the planned enlargement of NATO, to include "one or more
countries," of that region, is the most appropriate remedy, remains a subject of intense debate.

THE NEW NATO

The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War have clearly made the
strategic environment much more unpredictable. John J. Mearsheimer warned us in his prophetic
1990 Atlantic Monthly article that "we may likely soon regret the passing of the Cold War." For
many, the omen of these events was clear. The disappearance of the Soviet military threat that
had so dominated NATO's strategy over the last forty

-five years meant the loss of the Western Alliance's raison d'être. Indeed the new European
security environment, is analogous to a situation described by the modern Greek poet Gavafy in
his poem entitled: Expecting the Barbarians. In it, the citizens of a mythical city await the
arrival of the barbarians, only to find out that "there are no longer any barbarians." The citizens
are left confused, and wonder: "What shall become of us without any barbarians? These people
were a kind of solution."

The question"Whither NATO?" was a conference and workshop staple in the early 1990s. Then,
many scholars predicted the demise of NATO. The dawn of "peace" in Europe, in their view,
would give "collective security" a new life and would undermine the need for large multilateral
military organizations, such as NATO. This post-Cold War euphoria also affected
policymakers. In its 1994 report, the Special Joint Committee of the House and Senate charged
with reviewing Canadian foreign policy, argued that Canada should "encourage NATO to
continue moving to a collective security role for the whole of Europe." More worrisome still
were voices in Washington, questioning the need for a continued US military presence in
Europe. George Kennan, for example, observed in 1993, that: "the time for the stationing of
American forces on European soil has passed. (5) Others, like US Senator Richard Lugar,
suggested that "NATO go out of area or go out of business," and that the Alliance would face
irrelevancy, if it did not take in new members from the East.

The Cold War has indeed melted away, and so has NATO's primary mission - to deter and
defend against an attack on Western Europe by the Soviet led Warsaw Pact. But, the usefulness
of the Alliance has endured. NATO has, in fact, adjusted better than expected to the new Euro-Atlantic security environment. In its quest to remain relevant in a rapidly evolving situation,
since the July 1990 London Summit, NATO has gone through a major internal and external
transformation. The approval of the new Alliance Strategic Concept at the November 1991
Rome Summit, (emphasizing dialogue, cooperation, as well as, collective defence) - signaled a
shift to a more politically active and nonthreatening Alliance. In this vein, the North Atlantic
Cooperation Council (NACC) was created to deepen ties with CEE states. By 1992, the
Alliance had agreed to support CSCE and UN peace operations, thereby expanding the core
function of collective defence to include peacekeeping and crisis management. At the January
1994 Brussels summit, NATO broadened its links with the rest of Europe by establishing the
Partnership for Peace, (PfP), and agreed to create a more responsive military structure
exemplified by the Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF).

As a further example of its adaptation to the post-Cold War security environment, the Alliance
announced that it: "expected and would welcome NATO enlargement that would reach to
democratic states to our East as part of an evolutionary process, taking into account political and
security developments in the whole of Europe."

Collective defence remains the core of the Alliance. Nevertheless, NATO member-states
quickly realized after the end of the Cold War, that collective defence could not be the principal
focus of NATO's activities in the foreseeable future. NATO's day-to-day activities have shifted
from collective defence to "cooperative security" - in essence non-Article V activities have
achieved a new prominence. Certainly the best examples of this "new Alliance" have been the
NATO-led missions [Implementation Force (IFOR) and Stabilization Force (SFOR)], to
implement the military aspects of the Dayton Agreement in Bosnia.

NATO ENLARGEMENT

Despite these changes, it is NATO enlargement that is the most symbolic of this new NATO and
the most problematic. NATO Foreign Ministers, at the December 1996 meeting of the North
Atlantic Council (NAC), announced that a NATO Summit would be held in Madrid on 8/9 July
1997, when "one or more countries that have expressed interest in joining the Alliance" will be
invited to "begin accession negotiations." If all goes well, one or more CEE countries may join
NATO in April 1999- the fiftieth anniversary of the Alliance.

NATO enlargement has generated a great deal of debate, largely among academics. Some argue
that the enlargement issue is the most important and positive item on NATO's agenda. Others
assert that enlarging the EU first would have been more logical. Indeed, the NATO enlargement
process seems to have avoided answering some rather obvious questions. Before announcing the
enlargement of NATO might it not have been wiser to give PfP longer to develop and provide
vital dividends? Will the "new NATO," which places greater emphasis on non -Article V
"cooperative security," fully meet the security concerns of the new members? What about the
CEE countries not-invited to join NATO at the next summit? Will this planned enlargement of
NATO to the East satisfy the current security concerns of the southern tier NATO members?

Moreover, the process of actually enlarging the Alliance is not a sure thing. A critical
dimension of NATO's enlargement will involve the ratification of the protocol of accession by
all sixteen NATO members. Without a clear and present threat to CEE countries, one might
ask whether parliaments and national assemblies will be prepared to accept the risks and
the costs inherent in further extending security guarantees provided by Article V of the
Washington Treaty.

The concerns these questions raise are not trivial. However, the most challenging issue for
NATO policy makers will be finding a satisfactory way of addressing Russia's security
concerns. If not handled properly, enduring confrontation between Russia and the West will
likely ensue. Such an outcome would, in the view of Jonathan Dean, be the "worst mistake
in US policy towards Europe since the end of World War II."
(6) The Rand Corporation pro-enlargement study group also issued a similar warning:
"Depending how it is handled, expansion could stabilize a new European security order, or
contribute to either unraveling of the Alliance or a new Cold War with Russia. (7)

Chapter II considers the security concerns of the CEE countries from an historical,
economic, ethnic and geostrategic perspective, and then analyzes which Euro-Atlantic
security organizations best meet their security concerns. Chapter III reviews the relevance
of NATO to Euro-Atlantic security and the transformation of the Alliance from its
traditional core function of collective defence to include crisis management and
peacekeeping. This chapter concludes with a critical unanswered question: Will the "softer"
NATO approach to Euro-Atlantic security satisfy the quest by new members for "hard"
security guarantees? Given the multifaceted nature of Euro-Atlantic stability and security,
any account of the current NATO enlargement debate would be incomplete if it did not
address a number of broad outstanding security issues, of which enlargement of the
Alliance is but one component. Chapter IV highlights some of the outstanding issues
needing resolution in the months and years ahead. Chapter V will draw conclusions and put
forward recommendations.

NOTES

1. 1. For the purpose of this paper the term Central and Eastern Europe refers to Poland, Hungary, the Czech
Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The former Yugoslavia, although
part of Central Europe, will not be covered in this paper.

2. 2. The OSCE was known, until 1994, as the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).

3. 3. For further details see, Allen Lynch, "After Empire: Russia and Its Western Neighbours," Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty Research Report (hereafter as RFE/RL Research Report), vol. 3, no. 12, (25 March

1994).

4. 4.4. The full title of the agreement is "Founding Act on Mutual Relation, Cooperation and Security between the
Russian Federation and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization."

5. 5. Douglas T. Stuart, "Symbol and (Very Little) Substance in the US Debate over NATO Enlargement," Will
NATO Go East? The Debate Over Enlarging The Atlantic Alliance, ed. David G. Haglund, (Kingston
Ontario: Queen's University Centre for International Affairs, 1996), p. 118.